Dedicated to the Cargo Cults of Biology Science, Biotechnology and the Pharmaceutical Industry.
"So we really ought to look into theories that don't work, and science that isn't science"
Richard Feynman,
Cargo Cult Science,
From a Caltech commencement address given in 1974

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Thursday, October 30, 2008

We recently put the flame of Nastech out. Tight junction technology didn't work!!! Nastech lit the side of our runway for many years. Then one day it ended. The name was changed, the CEO was replaced and the stock became a steal at 15 cents a share. The name of the company was changed to MDRNA, as in RNAi. The new CEO was in fact the old CEO of SIRNA, as in siRNA. The latest addition to the MDRNA staff is the old CSO of SIRNA. SIRNA was sold for 1.1 billion dollars to Merck. Can lightening strike twice?

The first question is, what has Merck done with their aquisition of SIRNA? Any regrets? 1.1 billion is a lot of money. One might hope to make that kind of money from an approved product. Merck did not buy an approved product. The second question is, what does MDRNAs new brain trust plan to do with the 12 million bucks left behind by Nastech? The SIRNA patents are in the hands of Merck leaving only the brain power behind SIRNA and the power of RNAi.

The brains behind this new flame along our runway have a major obstacle. Can they stay in business long enough to get a drug approved? The villagers must be very enthusiastic, but will they hand over their money? If not this latest RNAi project will not get off the ground. If they get funds they will be free to conduct the science. We are watching.

Mr Feuerstein makes a living telling the other villagers, who look to the sky, what it is they should expect to see any day now. But he speaks from the investment perspective. The science is something he peppers into his columns. He doesn't know. It would be interesting to see an accounting of his ability to predict good from bad investments. Are his predictions best measured by his understanding of the science? Would a random stock pick make more or less?

Keep looking up Mr. Feuerstein.

Once again, Feynman; "So they've arranged to imitate things like runways, to put fires along the sides of the runways, to make awooden hut for a man to sit in, with two wooden pieces on his headlike headphones and bars of bamboo sticking out like antennas--he's the controller--and they wait for the airplanes to land."

Sunday, October 19, 2008

What if there were doctors for the health care industry. A company like Pfizer goes to the doctors office compaining of a weakness in sales and a bleak outlook for the future of their research efforts. The doctor says, "take off your marketing department please."

We continue to be shocked at the lack of outrage against these common practices. Which executives made the decisions that led to the conclusions in the second article? What about repeating such dishonesty over and over and occasionally getting caught? The industry has a disease. It is incapable of being honest when negative data presents itself. What is the cure?

Monday, October 06, 2008

The Nobel Prize committee for medicine has failed to honor Dr. Robert Gallo for his contributions to the HIV/AIDS hypothesis. While it's true that he appropriated the HIV virus from Luc Montagnier, he did convince the masses that this was the cause of HIV. A true Cargo Cult Scientist does not succeed by solving tough questions. He succeeds by convincing people that he knows how to make the airplanes come from the sky. The better the Cargo Cult Scientist the longer he can keep the masses looking up and waiting. The message from Stockholm today seems to say that it was not Dr. Gallo who started us all looking up.

Now would be a good time for the national media to explain why Dr. Gallo was snubbed. He was snubbed because he is a dishonest person. Many people know this yet he continues to work in science. Dr. Prusiner, the 1997 winner of the prize put it this way: http://aidscience.org/science/298(5599)1726b.html.

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About Me

My biotech career is merely a dream. In this dream we are all living on an Island where our ancestors once watched the westerners develop drugs that helped their people fight off disease and suffering. The westerners left and we are now donning their white lab coats and trying to create the drugs ourselves. We have their books, labs, beakers and a handful of drug targets they left behind. But nothing is working.